In my professional days I did magazine work where I shipped unprocessed film and never saw anything until after publication. Not to mention all the work I did on color slides where there was no choice but to deliver originals. I have no big objection to delivering originals to a responsible client. At least with digital I can keep exact copies.
Non-professional clients are somewhat a different matter, as they may not understand usage agreements or may not appreciate the need for proper post work before showing photos. So I am more cautious about what I release to a portrait clients -- or wedding clients if I did weddings.
Depending on the law where the contract was agreed the photographer may hold copyright by default. That's an asset. Just because they were shot for you does not mean only you might want them later.
Let's say the shot was of an event or place which currently has only significance to you. Later the people or places in the shot might become important to others. At this point who owns copyright and who has the right to licence use would become valuable. For example a shot where someone who later became famous was visible before they became famous, or a building that was later knocked down or became significant for later use.
This is why proper contracts are so important. They are the basis not only for the immediate purpose of the photography, but for later use as well.
Why would they? I assume they took the best cameras he had, because by the time I got there, there were several beat up Minoltacords, Koni Omegas and studio cameras with rotted bellows. I collect old cameras, and everything looked like it would cost more to restore and repair than they were worth. Several enlargers, many boxes of photographic paper, lots of cans and cartons of chemicals I took nothing. There were also thousands of old negatives in file cabinets that got tossed out.
I thought, what a shame this guy was too proud too sell these old negatives for a nominal fee to the clients he'd shot them for. Now, they're worthless and got tossed out. You're not going to live forever. I might want the negatives of my parents wedding from the s, but that photographer died a long time ago, so I can't get them now.
Same thing's true for the old digital files. Perhaps a photographer can tell the family up front that they can have the files at a agreed upon price. I stopped holding on to wedding negatives after I had been shooting for ten years or so.
I charged a bit more up front and gave the clients the negatives. I figured that the print album proved that the negatives were able to give up good prints, so I really wasn't worried about bad photo labs ruining my reputation. One of the things that I noticed over time was that the amount of space and effort that was required to archive negatives was far and away a greater burden than what I was making in residual profits off of said negatives. Since all of my work came from word of mouth referrals from former customers I never needed to advertise, and was kept as busy as I wanted to be , I just decided to stop keeping them.
I carried this into the digital age, I give my customers a DVD of ready to print image files as well as a couple of downsized versions of the same files. I embed a text file that describes a transfer of ownership of the images which is something I never had to do with film , and send the customer on their way. There is a similar post on the pro forum, some interesting comments there. In the day of film we did save all the negs in the hopes of reorders, few and far between.
When we finally decided to retire we just had a fire sale, burning negs stink. But that was 30 years ago. Would I sell the digital files, everything has a price. Maybe use the unsold dvds to hang in a tree to scare birds from the cherries. I just had my 40th high school reunion and I'm still making money on what I shot back in school. I was really disappointed as I was looking to buy the disc with them all on. Brian: I keep all my images indefinitely on three different sources.
Bluray, 1T USB 3. Nicole: My wedding photog kept them for a year and told us with lots of time to order anything. Sarah: I have everything I have ever shot. But now that my business is starting to pick up I will only be keeping sessions for 1 year. Most governmental and private bodies have record retention policies of o years, again, you are beyond that period.
To be safe, you could try to contact them, but that would be quite cumbersome. I say, they are yours, you are clear of any lawsuits, and your contracts required that you provide prints, which you did. Do what you want with them! And for future contracts, do what I do, and include a provision stating that you will keep the digital negatives for one year, that way there is no future concern about how long you have to hold them.
Go for it. If there is value there, don't throw them out. Find out what it would cost on average to have them scanned commercially. Think scan cafe or a local lab that needs the work and will give you a volume break. Give them three options. The dumpster Here is how you make it work. Hi everyone, I'm coming in late on this one, but I may have a solution to help you. My father was a wedding photographer dating back to the late 60's and he has a vast collection of and wedding negs he wanted to dispose of.
I have talked him into letting me try and sell them off for him. In the next month we will be launching a website aimed to help photographers sell off old photos wedding, portrait, commercial etc. This was primarily setup to sell this one load of negs from my Dad, but I quickly saw the potential in allowing it to be used globally I manage a web agency here in New Zealand. I am just working on a price structure now, but I'm hoping to make it very reasonable as it will be a long tail venture, based on volume.
Benefits will include excellent Search Engine optimisation and Social media. You will be able to scan a few photos, and upload details to the page, and then use this as a portal to push out the information, allow the users to see what you have available, and then contact you directly. Please get in touch here if you are interested and I can send you more information.
You must log in or sign up to reply here. Show Ignored Content. Share This Page Tweet. Your name or email address: Password: Forgot your password? And one of the most popular bits of nostalgia that we digitize are photo prints and photo negatives. Which got us thinking … what do people really know about those little brown film strips, aka negatives? Well, here are 5 things you might not know about photo negatives. Negatives were discovered in While Thomas Edison and Ben Franklin are easily household names for their technological endeavors, a lot of average Joes may not know the name Fox Talbot.
Negatives can be digitally converted Most people might think that digitizing your photos only works by scanning your actual photo prints. Continue Reading.
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